


Hopeful

by mansikka



Series: Heavyhearted [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Beginnings, M/M, Morning After, POV Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 08:14:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10827348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mansikka/pseuds/mansikka
Summary: The morning after.





	Hopeful

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dmsilvis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dmsilvis/gifts).



> Because a hopeful ending isn't quite enough, apparently ;) here's a little 'more' hope! x

Soft.

The pillow beneath your head that’s catching on your stubble as you drag your chin across it is soft, smells fresh as though recently changed, and without thinking, you press your nose into it and inhale.

Warm.

You’re cocooned here, snug beneath a tangle of blankets, tucked in and shielded against any draughts, and by the stiffness in your side, it seems you’ve been laid in the same position all night long.

Sleeping.

You have to still be sleeping. Still in a teasing, taunting dreamland, where your eyes crack open to reveal a room that isn’t yours, though is familiar, a wide, firm hand lightly gripped around your side, and a wall of heat radiating behind you that’s not quite touching, like it hasn’t yet had permission to. The night rushes back to you, and you shift in alarm, sucking in a breath that feels parched, cottony, as your head fights to play reminders through the thick fog that seems to be shrouding your thought process.

A car ride home— _home_ , you repeat to yourself, stunned for it, where a warm hand linked through yours refusing to let go the entire way. A gentle series of nudges that led you inside, and when you veered off to use the bathroom, met you in the doorway again a few minutes later with a tall glass of water, then took you to the kitchen, where a hastily made sandwich was pressed insistently into one hand, and two pills popped into the palm of your other, that you swallowed back with belated realisation of just how much you’d been drinking.

More nudges brought you into this room— _his_ room, with steady hands holding you up as you kicked off your shoes, helping you out of your jacket when you struggled, tugging as you fought your way out of jeans that you remember him saying suited you, fit you well, you should wear more often.

“You awake?”

You startle at the question being whispered inches from your ear, as breath tickles the back of it, and hesitant fingers press a little firmer into your side. A sliding, rustling sound is followed by the surprise of bare shins kissing softly against your bare calves. You brace for waking, hear your own breath rattle out of you as first a nose, then a kiss, is pressed to the back of your head.

“Feeling okay?”

The realisation that you’re not, in fact, dreaming, is bewildering, but you can’t risk wasting another second, and so you reach up, slot your fingers through his, tug until his hand is on your stomach and he’s shuffling forward, the line of his whole body firm, slotting in a curve against your back. He’s mouthing along the length of your shoulder, and it’s one thing feeling it through the barrier of your t-shirt, but when his lips hit the bare skin of your neck, you can’t help reacting, and jolt in surprise. But it just brings him closer, wrapping himself even tighter around you, nuzzling into your neck like he belongs there; it feels like he’s always belonged there.

Still, you’re not quite brave enough, not ready to move away from the sanctity of being on your side, facing away from him. Because what if he changes his mind?

“Cas—”

“I’m fine,” you stumble out, hoarse, reminding you the last words that came out of your mouth were ordering whiskey at the bar last night. You check yourself over, feel heavy, slowed by the effects of the alcohol, but thankfully clear enough in thinking to realize this is really, honestly where you’ve found yourself this morning. In his bed. In his arms.

He presses a longer, more insistent kiss against your pulse point, and you swallow hard for it, for how it stirs you, for how real this all seems. It’s possible; is this really possible? Was it only yesterday that you’d resigned yourself to wandering, tethered to something you could never have yet that would never truly let you leave?

You want to turn in his arms, look into his eyes, make sure it really is real, and then claim his mouth. You’ve thought about it, oh so many times; what it will feel like to have his lips pressed and molded against your own, his face cradled between your palms as he _lets_ you kiss him, invites it even. Kisses you back.

“How ‘bout some breakfast?”

The question is kissed into your skin, and you want to relish in it, you do, but all you’re hearing is a reason for him to leave you alone again. Still, the growl of your stomach thinks otherwise, and he smiles into your hair for hearing it, pressing one final kiss there, and squeezing between your fingers, then pulling away.

You listen without commenting as he yawns and stretches, then leaves the room without another word. Are you supposed to wait here? Follow him?

Minutes pass as you talk yourself in and out of various possibilities, and before you can change your mind yet again, you are out of bed yourself, draining the glass of water left by your bedside, and eyeing the bedroom door as though beyond that is an existence you’re really not sure is yours to even want. But you must, you tell yourself, you must, and besides, your body is now protesting reminders of other things you’ve come to adjust to needing as part and parcel of humanity. Much less complicated things than falling in _love_ , at least, you tell yourself, as you finally convince yourself to leave the room.

You listen to him in the kitchen as you make your way through the bunker to the bathroom, wonder if he’s trying to hide from you, get some distance, find a way to say this is not okay, that what you’re hoping for is not the way things are going to be. But the mirror tells a different story. There’s a brightness in your eyes, and a color to your cheeks that speaks of optimism, and hope. Your gaze sweeps down to your neck, where he pressed kisses just minutes ago, and you imagine watching him doing the same in the reflection there, have to grip the side of the sink for the way the thought makes your stomach flip. You take one more moment to glimpse yourself over, pull at the ends of your hair to try and tidy it, then nod.

“Got the place to ourselves today,” He announces on your arrival in the kitchen, a half-turned look over his shoulder in your direction, already stood at the stove and moving things around in pans. You force yourself closer, lean back against the kitchen cabinets barely a foot away from his elbow, and watch.

“Sam’s gone—Sam’s just… out,”

Intentionally? Is he unapproving? Does he not want to bear witness to the awkwardness between the two of you that is no doubt to come? A new worry hits you, that even if Dean thinks he does want this—whatever _this_ might turn into —if Sam doesn’t like the idea, is it over before it even starts?

“Says he’ll give us a call later, so we can go meet him. Gotta… gotta pick up your truck,”

Truck, you think, another memory coming back to you from last night; you were going to drive all night, get yourself lost somewhere. But maybe you hadn’t given up hope on him entirely, because if he was going to look for you anywhere, it would be close to home, a place that he had shown you in the past. Is it bad that you are so predictable, worse that it took him so long to come for you? Why is every thought in your head laced with doubt, even the positive ones?

“‘Sides. I wanted… I needed some alone time. With you,”

The tension seizing you must be emanating from your skin, because the second you freeze up, he spins, reaches without looking to turn the dials on the stove and turn off the heat. He leaves only a few inches of gap between you as he moves, yet pins you there with the look in his eyes, asking you to wait him out, to be patient with him.

How else are you ever going to be?

“I don’t want an audience for me falling over my words and all. Hard enough getting ‘em out without… without any ‘o that,” and the realization that he truly, honestly means to speak to you about this, that it’s not going to be disregarded or misinterpreted, is enough to knock the strength from the backs your knees.

But it’s not words you’re thinking about right now, because his eyes dart repeatedly to your mouth, his lip gets sucked in and bitten down on, and that gap between you narrows, until the front of his shirt is whispering against your own.

“You’re not saying much,”

His words aren’t reproachful, but they are nervous, and they’re enough to drag your eyes away from his mouth, up to meet his stare. His hands have fallen either side of you and are pressed against the counter, bringing him so close, you need only tilt your head back in offering. But you don’t.

“I don’t know what to say,” you answer, which is truthful, and not nearly enough. But with courage you’ve told yourself you didn’t have, you raise your arms up, loop them around his waist, catch your breath a little for the solid feel of him there against your forearms as you pull him to you.

“Okay,” he tells you, and it sounds like a promise, as he lifts a hand to trace fingertips over your cheek, and the other comes up to cup the back of your head. And then he kisses you, warm as anything, full of love, and longing. Full of _life_. And if you have ever known anything true in your existence, it is this; your mouth moving pliant beneath his, tasting what you thought was forbidden, claiming what apparently was always yours.


End file.
